Ginger's Blog

Yearly Archives: 2013

Ever thought of quenching your thirst for knowledge at a Chinese restaurant? Did the owners come up with an innovative food establishment where knowledge seekers can access Wikipedia for free while they eat?

Most likely, the writer used Google Translate while creating the menu.

Mistranslations can cause giant and expensive problems. While this humorous typo probably won’t cause heartburn, in 2009 the bank HSBC had to spend $10 million on a rebranding campaign after their slogan “assume nothing” was mistranslated into “do nothing” in various countries around the world.

The moral of this story is to make sure you have a trusty proofreader. Ginger can do the trick for all your editing needs – whether menus or food descriptions.

Add Ginger to your fried beef and avoid the taste of web pages in your mouth!

In 1908, thousands of women in New York protested against their long hours, low pay and lack of voting rights. As a result, the first Woman’s Day was celebrated in the U.S.

The pioneering women that worked hard to gain the right to vote were known as “Suffragettes.”

The word “Suffragette” is derived from the word “suffrage,” meaning the right to vote, especially in a political election; and the suffix “-ette,” meaning “female.”

With the rise of socialism and the expansion of the Industrial Revolution, the suffragette’s struggle for women’s rights gained momentum internationally.

In Copenhagen during 1910, Clara Zetkin, a leader in the “Women’s Office” for the Social Democratic Party in Germany, proposed the idea of having a worldwide Women’s Day to highlight discrimination against women. She presented this idea at a conference of over 100 women from 17 countries. Her idea was adopted; thus creating International Women’s Day.

Today, International Women’s Day is celebrated as an official holiday by many countries. In some countries – such as China, Nepal and Madagascar – it is a holiday for women only. March 8 has become a global day for celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women of the past, present and future.

Read more: http://www.internationalwomensday.com/

Take the time to support the advancement of women during this International Women’s Day!

There are so many awkward, funny and gut wrenching situations that deserve a dedicated word, yet no such word exists. Well…in English at least. Luckily, we found some more great words to add to our original list of unique words that we need in English that we posted back in September. Enjoy, and please add additional words in the comments.

1. yokomeshi (pronouncedyoh–koh mesh-ee) – This Japanese word is literally translated as “a meal eaten sideways,” referring to the peculiar stress induced by speaking a foreign language. We all know that feeling as we stumble over the difficult pronunciations of foreign languages…just like some of the words below! Pronouncing these words does often feel like eating a meal sideways.

2. prozvonit(pronouncedpros-VOH-nit) – This is the Czech word for when you call someone’s cell phone and only let it ring once before hanging up. This saves you the cost of paying for the call, putting the financial burden on your friend!

3. jayus(pronouncedJI-oos) – In Indonesia, when a joke is told so poorly and awkwardly that it is funny, it is called a jayus. We have all witnessed this, and most of us have told a jayus or two ourselves.

4. Schadenfreude (pronouncedShuden-freude) – This German word is a noun for “pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.” Watching “America’s Funniest Home Videos” is an example of Schadenfreude.

5. zeg (pronounced zeh-G) – In Georgian, this word means “the day after tomorrow.” This mono-syllabic word is much easier to use than its 7-syllable English equivalent. “See you zeg!” We could definitely get used to that.

What words can you add to this list? Sleep on it and post them in our comments zeg!

Rip Empson, of TechCrunch, describes how we have used our expertise developing Ginger’s Online Proofreader to bring the first, and only, Grammar checker to the mobile market.

The Ginger Keyboard works with all Android applications and checks your spelling and grammar with just one click. Use the Grammar & Spelling Keyboard for emailing, Facebooking, Tweeting and writing SMSs with more confidence and fewer mistakes while you are on-the-move.

Make the Ginger Keyboard the default on your phone and easily use it with any Android device.

If the act of waiting was not a bad enough, this hilarious sign that we found atEngrish Funny tells us that we will actually be punished just for waiting. This humorous typo from Hong Kong is TRYING to tell us that people waiting around in a vehicle will be prosecuted. The typo seen in the picture is a shorter and much more bizarre version of this sign which is still a little confusing.

The good news is that the number of people using Ginger’s Spelling and Grammar Checker in Asia continues to grow. We hope that they will begin implementing Ginger at a municipal level so that when foreign visitors to places such as Hong Kong will not be frightened that waiting around could get them jail time.

About 700 years ago was actually the first time that the word “Valentine’s Day” appeared in print in a romantic context in a poem by Chaucer:

“For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.”

This passage was written in Middle English which was used from the 11th – 15th Centuries. Translated into modern English, this poem would read:

“For this was on Saint Valentine’s Day,
when every bird cometh there to choose his mate.”

Chaucer’s Middle English began changing into Early Modern English during the 15th Century. Events that marked the change from Middle to Early Modern English were the “Great Vowel Shift” (where long vowel sounds changed away from their origins in Latin and Italian), the migration of people to south England as a result of the Black Plague, the introduction of the printing press in the 1470s and the English standardizations occurring by the government in London.

Chaucer was the foremost writer during the Middle English period, but it would not be until the time of Shakespeare in the 14th – 15th Century that English would progress to a modern form that people in the 21st Century could easily understand.

Carnivals. We all know what they are, and how fun they can be, but where does this word come from? Since the the Rio Carnival is heating up right now in Brazil, it’s a perfect time to learn both where the word “carnival” comes from and the concept of a loanword.

A loanword is a word taken from one language and then incorporated into another. The word “loanword” itself is a comes from the German word “lehnwort.” A giant 29% of all words in English come from Latin (tied with French as the largest contributing language to English).

The word “carnival” is suspected to come from the two late Latin words “carne” and “vale” which loosely translates to “farewell to meat.” Early carnivals were Catholic events in Spain and Portugal that took place before Easter. At these carnivals, celebrants would be giving it up for the next 40 days as a means of fasting.

Festival also has Latin roots with an origin in the word “festivus” which means cheerful. Festivals are large parties or events hosted by a community which usually celebrates something particular community.

Historically festivals centered around religious celebrations in honor of gods, but in modern times we have wine festivals, music festivals, literature festivals and many more fun variants.

What carnivals or festivals are you excited to attend this year and what is your favorite loanword found in English?

Ouch! This sign is painful just to look at. This is the largest typo that we have seen… yet! Another massive Monday Mistake, makes you wonder how many sets of eyes looked at this gigantic billboard, and overlooked its glaring spelling mistake, before it was raised high over the streets of Houston Texas.

Certainly the computer program used to make this sign had a spell checker. We don’t think that this sign was made using MS Paint. Just because they ended the alphabet at the letter C in this picture does not mean that they can leave out the D in children.

Yet another funny, and expensive, Monday Mistake that Ginger could have prevented.

The Super Bowl is one of the most popular games in sports today, but where does its peculiar name come from?

1. A child’s toy called the “Super Ball.”

Lamar Hunt was the owner of the Kansas City Chiefs when the American Football League (AFL) and the National Football League (NFL) were having meetings prior to their merger in 1970.

It was agreed that prior to their merger, the two leagues would meet together in a championship game which Hunt casually referred to as the “Super Bowl,” likely because he had the name of his child’s toy the “Super Ball” stuck in his head.

2. A Bowl Shaped Stadium in California

Long before this AFL and NFL merger, post season American college football games were known as “bowls.” The football stadium in Pasadena, California where the tournament of Roses was first held looked so much like a bowl that people started calling this the “Rose Bowl.” The name stuck and today we have the 35 college level “Bowls” plus the professional “Super Bowl!”

Who will you be cheering for in Super Bowl 2013? The Baltimore Ravens or the San Francisco 49ers?